Tag: Doorway

Neo-Romanian style elevator

Valentin Mandache
Neo-Romanian style elevator, 1926 apartment bloc designed by architect Arghir Culina, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The Neo-Romanian style was intended since its inception as a “total” national style, covering domains such as civil, industrial and military architecture, interior design, visual arts or even book design. A less known direction of application was that of the machinery associated with big edifices built in the Neo-Romanian style, such as the elevators. There are some interesting examples around of lifts, which show attempts to ornate or imprint on those machines a Neo-Romanian outlook. An telling example is the elevator doorway and stairs rail that coils around the lift shaft, presented in the photograph above, which I recently found in the main hallway of one of the largest apartment blocks ever built in the Neo-Romanian style. The structure is located on Hristo Botev boulevard in Bucharest, designed by architect Arghir Culina, dating from 1926, during what I call the mature phase of the Neo-Romanian style.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

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If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Two contrasting types of Neo-Romanian style doorways

Valentin Mandache

The Neo-Romanian architectural style throughout its over six decades of existence, between the 1880s and 1940s, had to adapted itself to evolving architectural trends and technologies and also adopted, sometimes quite liberally, motifs and symbols from other styles, the most prominent such synthesis being perhaps its hybridisation with the Art Deco style in the 1930s era. Bellow are two Neo-Romanian style doorways that express those processes. The first one embellishes the front entrance of “Iulia Hasdeu” high school in Bucharest, which combines Neo-Romanian, classical and Gothic style motifs, while in the second example is a doorway displaying ethnographic motifs. They are just a sample from the great diversity of forms and motifs found within the decorative register of this architectural style peculiar to Romania.

Neo-Romanian style doorway, "Iulia Hasdeu" highschool front entrance, edifice built in 1926, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The high school doorway, seen in the photograph above and detailed image bellow, has a very interesting reference to a classical Greek-Roman temple pediment, symbolising the fact that the school is conceived as a “temple” or learning. The assembly also contains two thin Gothic column motifs at the door’s centre and on its arcade mullions, perhaps a metaphor for the fact that the school is envisaged as a “cathedral” of learning too.

Neo-Romanian style doorway, "Iulia Hasdeu" highschool front entrance (1926), Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)
Neo-Romanian style doorway, late-1920s house, Cismigiu area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The photographs above and bellow show a Neo-Romanian style doorway that displays prominent ethnographic motifs, the most remarkable of which being the intricately carved corbels supporting the awning. The assembly is imagined as echoing an ancestral Romanian peasant gateway, suggesting types found in villages that dot the piedmont of the Carpathian Mountains.

Neo-Romanian style doorway, late-1920s house, Cismigiu area, Bucharest, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

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If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.

Art Nouveau style gates

Valentin Mandache
Art Nouveau style gates, dating from the 1900s, Mosilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

These interesting Art Novueau iron gates are one of the “discoveries” made yesterday during the architectural history and photography tour in Mosilor area of Bucharest. The metalwork of this once exquisite structure, which is an architectural rarity for the entire south-east region of Romania, is quite corroded and would need an ample restoration process to bring it to its former glory. I very much doubt that would ever happen in contemporary Bucharest, where most the inhabitants do not have even an elementary understanding, let alone appreciation, of their architectural heritage. The gates have, in my opinion, an infinitely higher chance to reach the scrapyard.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

“Inter-war Venetian” style doorway with tortoises and iguanas

Valentin Mandache
"Inter-war Venetian" synthetic style doorway, mid-1930s house, Aviatorilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The exquisite doorway presented in these images adorns a mid-1930s house in a synthetic architectural style developed in that period in Romania, which consists in large part in a mixture of Neo-Romanian and Italian Renaissance motifs inspired especially from the Venetian types, a style which I term as “Inter-war Venetian“. Specifically Neo-Romanian in this instance is the grapevine motif decorating the wall opening rim and outer arch, present also within the column capital and base, while “Venetian” is the general aspect of the columns and assembly. The most peculiar aspect of this doorway is represented by the tortoises and iguana-like lizards decorating the column base corners, denoting symbols of which I am quite ignorant, perhaps symbolysing the ground, the solid surface of the earth, the “terra firma” in Latin or “dorso duro” in the Venetian language, while the birds and winged dragoons represented on the capital symbolise the sky and heavens. I look forward to be enlightened in that regard by my more knowledgeable readers. 🙂

"Inter-war Venetian" synthetic style doorway, mid 1930s house, Aviatorilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)
"Inter-war Venetian" synthetic style doorway,decorated with tortoises and iguanas at the base of the column, mid 1930s house, Aviatorilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Tortoises and iguanas as part of the decoration of the doorway’s columns, perhaps symbolising the earth and ground bound world aspiring to higher ideals in life, etc.

"Inter-war Venetian" synthetic style doorway, mid-1930s house, Aviatorilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Highly ornate columns containing bird and winged dragoon motifs, symbolising the sky and heavens and the manichean battle between good (birds) and evil (dragoon/ reptile).

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

1900s Neo-Romanian doorway

Valentin Mandache
Neo-Romanian style doorway with Beaux Arts style elements, dating from the 1900s, Foisorul de Foc, Bucharest (Valentin Mandache)

The above doorway is an interesting hybrid of early Neo-Romanian style elements such as the broken arch and the rope motif lining up the arch, ethnographic solar discs at the base of the arch or lilac shape Greek cross niches above and on each side of the arch, together with Beaux Arts bits seen in the wrought iron ornamentation of the door, especially the house owner’s monogram surrounded by a laurel wreath, a classical motif quite alien to the early Neo-Romanian style, which had as its main sources of inspiration the Wallachian late medieval architecture (Brancovan) and also Balkan Ottoman patterns. The whole composition is a witness of a period when the Neo-Romanian style was at its beginnings, not yet fully imposed on the architectural scene of the country and gives an idea how it made inroads into the consecrated tastes of the public.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

Art Nouveau style door handle

Valentin Mandache
Art Nouveau style door handle, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The photograph presents a beautiful Art Nouveau style brass door handle, which I recently found in the Cismigiu area of Bucharest, adorning a large doorway decorated with neo-baroque motifs, of a Little Paris style house dating from the 1900s. It is a quite rare architectural history artefact find for Bucharest.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

Bucharest period doorways

Valentin Mandache

Bellow are three examples of Bucharest doorways in styles that characterise most of the historic architecture of Romania’s capital. The first photograph immediately under the text is in what I call the Little Paris style, an architecture popular during the La Belle Époque era (corresponding with the late Victorian and Edwardian periods), which was inspired on the whole from the French c19th historicist styles very fashionable in Romania of that time. The second photograph presents a Neo-Romanian style doorway, a national-romantic architectural order peculiar to this country that reached its apogee in the 1920s, the decade following the Great War from which Romania emerged victorious with a heightened sense of national pride. The third image shows an Art Deco style doorway from the mid-1930s, a period when this international style became an architectural hallmark of Bucharest, which embellished the city with countless private and public edifices that still delight its contemporary visitors.

Little Paris style doorway, 1900s house, Magheru area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

I like in the above example the pair of eye-holes piercing the main panels of each of the doors, used to identify the visitors of more than a century ago.

Neo-Romanian style doorway, late 1920s house, Kiseleff area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

The main feature of this Neo-Romanian doorway is its ample awning inspired from that adorning entrances of late medieval Wallachian. The two jardiniers flanking the door are of great visual effect and are embellished with intricate Neo-Romanian motifs.

Art Deco style doorway, mid-1930s house, Mosilor area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

This is a quite an elaborate Art Deco doorway assembly with an ample pediment and two beautiful jardinieres in the same style (a rarity for Bucharest) flanking the entrance on top of the access stair balustrades. I very much like the two wall lamps encastred into the pediment, embellished with stained glasses.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

Flamboyant Art Deco floral theme doorway

Valentin Mandache
Flamboyant Art Deco floral theme doorway, early 1930s house, Gara de Nord area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

We are enjoying an excellent sunny April weather today in Bucharest and to be in tone with this beautiful atmosphere, I would like to share with you this delicious rich floral theme doorway from one of the Bucharest quarters around Gara de Nord (the Northern Train Station) developed in the inter-war period. It it to my knowledge one the most flamboyant such creations in the entire town!

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

Round-like profile Art Nouveau doorway

Valentin Mandache
Art Nouveau style doorway, Casa Dinu Lipatti (cca 1900s), Catargiu Blvd, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

Presented above is the well proportioned round-like profile Art Nouveau style doorway, crowned by an ample and expressive mascaron in the same style, adorning the Dinu Lipatti house in Bucharest. The building is a mixture of styles, including neo-rococo and even some Neo-Romanian elements, in which the Art Nouveau features predominate. The edifice is an early creation of architect Petre Antonescu, one of the most seminal Romanian architects, known especially for his grand Neo-Romanian style edifices. This particular building shows Antonescu’s versatility in many design genres at an early stage in his career.

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I endeavour through this series of periodic articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contactpage of this weblog.

Neo-Romanian style “medieval” gateway

Valentin Mandache

Bellow is presented an early 1920s Neo-Romanian style gateway designed in the “citadel” variety of this order. Its impressive aspect is given by the heavy brick and mortar fabric, austere decorative arches and a severe looking metal door imagined as the “harrow gate” (portcullis) of a medieval fortress. During its heydays, in the inter-war period, the structure provided the visual focus for the entire house it embellishes. Today, by contrast, the gateway is in a decrepit state and nearly invisible to the passers by, as can be ascertained from the first photograph after the text. In order to better convey to the readers its former glory and impressiveness, I posted another two processed images of this structure (see bellow)- an inverse colour and gradient green filter photograph and a posterised image with a sunburst at its centre, which somehow bring from “beyond the grave”, in the manner of a ground radar, the features and message that the architect intended for this gateway.

Neo-Romanian style gateway, early 1920s house, Rosetti area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)
Neo-Romanian style gateway (inverse colour & gradient green filter), early 1920s house, Rosetti area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)
Neo-Romanian style gateway (posterised photograph with sunburst at its centre), early 1902s house, Rosetti area, Bucharest (©Valentin Mandache)

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I endeavour through this daily series of articles to inspire appreciation of the historic houses of Romania, a virtually undiscovered, but fascinating chapter of European architectural history and heritage.

***********************************************

If you plan acquiring or selling a historic property in Romania or start a renovation project, I would be delighted to advice you in sourcing and transacting the property, specialist research, etc. To discuss your particular plan please see my contact details in the Contact page of this weblog.